On Thu, 2 Jan 2003, Nagarjuna G. wrote:
There is a temporary domain problem, which is more or less fixed with ncst. the domain will begin working soon. If you have problems please add cc4.tifr.res.in to the mail domain, e.g., fsf-friends@cc4.tifr.res.in.
Sorry for the trouble.
Nagarjuna
On Thu, Jan 02, 2003 at 05:42:59PM +0530, Frederick Noronha wrote:
Am getting a 'host not found' message from this address. FN
The original message was received at Wed, 1 Jan 2003 17:17:28 +0530 (IST) from IDENT:root@dialup-74-238.goatelecom.com [61.1.74.238]
fsf-friends@gnu.org.in (reason: 550 Host unknown)
550 5.1.2 fsf-friends@gnu.org.in... Host unknown (Name server: gnu.org.in: host not found)
Reporting-MTA: dns; goatelecom.com Received-From-MTA: DNS; dialup-74-238.goatelecom.com Arrival-Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 17:17:28 +0530 (IST)
Final-Recipient: RFC822; fsf-friends@gnu.org.in Action: failed Status: 5.1.2 Remote-MTA: DNS; gnu.org.in Diagnostic-Code: SMTP; 550 Host unknown Last-Attempt-Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 17:19:54 +0530 (IST)
Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 17:04:05 +0530 (IST) From: Frederick Noronha fred@bytesforall.org Subject: Re: Likely problem... To: Sukrit D sd_root@yahoo.com cc: p_lug@yahoogroups.com, fsf-friends@gnu.org.in, linux-india-general@lists.sourceforge.net
Sukrit, forwarding your mail to LIG, since the debate came up there. Also to the Free Software Foundation-India mailing list, where another set of views prevail.
Personally, my view is (i) we nee to give credit where credit is due, and since many of the tools are from GNU, it would be unfair to call the whole Operating System just after the kernel (though the media keeps doing this repeatedly; the media also terms 'crackers' as 'hackers'...) (ii) personally, one thing that appears important to me is the issue of freedom (not just freedom of choice placed before a consumer, but the freedom that empowers you to run a program for any purpose, study how it works, redistribute copies and improve the program.... this is what GNU emphasises on (iii) the Open Source movement was launched in 1998, and strategically aimed at garnering acceptance for "Linux" from the business world... while this is important, one would maintain that we should not lose sight of our other perspectives while doing so.
Re the Bangalore LUG, every group (or individual, or set of individuals) has or have its/their own set of perspectives on this issue. If you follow the postings of mailing lists in Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi and the large number of smaller LUGs/GLUGs across the country, you will see that each has differing policies.
This is fine. Ultimately it is for each one to decide, and opt for what one feels is important. Some would also argue that the Free Software and the Open Source are two different movements, the first born in the early 'eighties and the latter in the late 'nineties. Interestingly, it was Indian expat Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (based in Netherlands) who used the term FLOSS (Free/Libre and Open Source Software) to have an inclusive term that includes all segments.
So, given differing priorities and principles, how do we work together? In Goa, different members have their own perspectives, and we do coexist. One of our LUGs, in Margao, changed their name (GLUG) and their website's name after the recent visit to Richard M Stallman to Goa.
There are many more issues than appear at first sight. If you want to look at more angles, you could read the biography of Stallman, written by Sam Williams (Free as in Freedom-Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software, 2001, O'Reilly). It is put out under the GFDL License (anyone can copy it... maybe even print an Indian edition). Some parts of the book are fairly critical of Stallman, but on the whole IMHO, it presents an interesting introduction to the entire debate and related issues.
Incidentally, things have changed a lot and continue to change, in a short period of time. When Linux-India was started some years back, the idea was to name all groups as ILUG-CityName. We half-seriously wanted to name ours GLUG (Goa Linux Users' Group). But this was shot down in the interest of uniformity. Since then, the earlier attempts at working on parallel tracks seem to be diminishing. (Tried writing in to 'Thaths' Chandrashekharan recently, but he must be away in Africa, and mail to his address doesn't go through.)
Anyway, in conclusion, we need to perhaps keep two things in mind. (i) Issues are more complex than they first seem (ii) It would be nice if Linux-India (under whatever name) or any other organisation could help to coordinate between different LUGs/GLUGs, and network among the different smaller groups as used to happen earlier.
Just a few of my thoughts... I wouldn't say 'musings', since that's the word currently in fashion... from Goa. --FN
On Wed, 1 Jan 2003, Sukrit D wrote:
guys, im the guy who sorta started plug. i wana hear wat u guys hav to say abt it. jus keep out the unhealthy stuff. as important as gnu is to me (iv mentioned it all over the site) i think its being given a little too much importance nowadays. frankly im into linux coz i get the kick out of it. to me its probably the hippy movement of the 21st century. as important as gnu is, one can't go about sying "gnoo linux" all the time. its jus too damn long. gnu is like the middle name. one jus dosnt use it all the time.
also, plug sounds much better than pglug. besides, has anyone mentioned anythin similar abt blug? bangalore linux users group???? not to my knowledge.
SD.PS: btw gnu or no gnu, we'v achieved somethin to be proud of. we'v got over 2000 hits in 4 days of being online. thanks, fred for more publicity...